


rendezvous

by coloredink



Series: Sinsemilla [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Humor, M/M, Post-Canon, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-31
Updated: 2006-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-17 00:46:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coloredink/pseuds/coloredink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There really is no way to summarize this.  I promise it's not what you think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rendezvous

  
"Bhujerban Madhu," Al-Cid Margrace exclaimed, admiring the label. "You do me an honor."

"You are too gracious," Balthier replied, hands clasped behind his back respectfully. "Madhu is not nearly as fine as some of your Rozarrian vintages. But I thought you might appreciate the, ah, variety."

Al-Cid chuckled and handed the bottle to one of his ever-present aides, who uncorked the bottle and poured it into two glasses with seemingly no effort or tools involved. "You have a diplomat's talent for the turn of phrase. Madhu is exotic here, and exciting to the palate." He accepted one of the glasses the woman handed him, and the other was given to Balthier. "But it is a poor offer from a man who has been in the country seven months now and never so much as waved--especially when all thought he was dead. And I thought us comrades."

"You may be familiar with bounty laws," Balthier said.

"Ah, yes." Al-Cid chuckled. "A strange custom of yours, this. . . expiration of crimes. Once a criminal, always a criminal, is my way of thinking; time does not remove that the crime happened. Sit."

It was far enough within the palace that there was little sand on the floor, but still thick, lushly-colored carpets were spread out around them, dotted with numerous large cushions. Al-Cid waved Balthier to one of these with the air of a man who does not even consider that he may be disobeyed and folded his long legs beneath him to drop onto a cushion himself. At a wave, the aide darted over with two well-stuffed bolsters for them to lean their backs against.

"Well," Al-Cid said, sipping his wine, "what brings you here now?"

"As you have pointed out, it would be inexcusably rude of me to depart your fine country now without so much as a by-your-leave."

"Departing already?" Al-Cid raised his eyebrows. "But I've not even given you a tour!"

"Seven months has been long enough for us to acquaint ourselves with your fine country," Balthier said with a wry twist of the lips. "We do not wish to overstay our welcome, and I believe it time to return to my old life."

"Ah, but a tour of Al-Andalus, at least?" Al-Cid swept out his arm in an expansive gesture, meant to encompass the entire palace and not simply the room.

"I had wondered about your choice of decor." The interior of the palace--and some of the exterior as well--was covered from ceiling to floor with vast, detailed carvings that were nothing so much as repetitive patterns: curves and angles and arcs, looping in upon themselves and firing off into different motifs, occasionally ending in perfectly symmetrical flowers--all of which was painted in vivid, striking color. The ceilings, too, were similarly decorated with huge, complex knots, and so were the cushions and bolsters that served as furniture here, and the rugs.

"Rozarrians are not, mmm, much interested in imperfect representations," Al-Cid said. "How can you capture the beauty of life in a painting? And so we capture it in patterns, which are perfect."

"They are quite beautiful. I have never seen the like."

Al-Cid placed his glass carefully on the floor. "You come bearing wine and flattery, Balthier. Such things are dangerous in a pirate." His smile was pleasant and showed no teeth, but still somehow conveyed warning. "What is it that you want?"

"Ah. Well." Balthier kept his own smile bland and unassuming. "I suppose you have seen completely through me." And he climbed to his feet, knelt down next to the prince, and kissed him.

Al-Cid's smile was less dangerous when they pulled apart. "There is no end to your flattery. But I am no man's catamite."

"I did not expect as much," Balthier replied. "I am no threat to you there. Care to send your little bird away? I find her presence. . . distracting."

Al-Cid laughed, throaty and low. "We will remove ourselves, then." He rose smoothly, and Balthier was only a moment in following him; the long months in Rozarria sitting as the natives did had toned his legs so that he no longer staggered like an old man when he stood, his vision blacking at the edges.

Al-Cid led him down another brilliantly-hued hallway, one side of which was not a wall so much as a series of pillared arches opening out onto a broad white courtyard with a fountain in the center that spilled water into shallow gutters. The breeze that came from it was cool, and long-tailed birds swooped here and there, sometimes fluttering up beyond Balthier's field of vision to perch in the delicate filigree at the apex of the arches. Balthier followed Al-Cid through the courtyard, and then another corridor, and then another, until the doorways they passed were no longer open as with the receiving room, but curtained for privacy. It was through one of these that Al-Cid pushed him.

Even the windows, here, could not be ordinary; they were shaped as flowers or minarets or stars. They were curtained, but these had been drawn aside to let spill in the daylight, and Balthier could see the gardens below, dark green with summer. Another rug, more enormous than any Balthier had previously seen in the palace, sprawled nearly to all four corners of the room, and a painted silk screen divided one corner from the rest. "Is this your bedroom?" he queried. "You do me an honor."

"You are presumptuous," Al-Cid replied, coming up behind Balthier to clasp one buttock.

"I see it only as my due." Balthier pitched his voice low into a purr, and Al-Cid let out a chuckling growl in response. He slithered 'round in the other man's hold so that he could attack the laces of Al-Cid's shirt. Another man might have snapped them in his haste, but Balthier undid them one by one.

"You take too long," Al-Cid complained.

"Tch," Balthier said in reply. "You'd complain about my ruining your shirt, after." At last, Al-Cid's shirt hung open, and Balthier scratched his fingernails through the coarse hair on his chest, which tapered down into a soft black trail that disappeared into his leggings.

"Must I be the man in all things?" Al-Cid lamented. Without waiting for Balthier's reply, he seized the sky pirate by the front of his shirt and slung him 'round the screen, which hid nothing so much as a rather excessive pile of cushions of extravagant size, some of them large enough to themselves function as a bed. Al-Cid dropped Balthier atop them and then attended himself not to Balthier's shirt, but to his breeches.

"Hasty, are we?" Balthier gave a breathy laugh as Al-Cid yanked his breeches down and wrapped one large hand around Balthier's prick, already flushed and heavy and growing harder by the moment.

"Think of it as my royal prerogative," Al-Cid told him. He gave Balthier several rough pulls that made him groan, and then let go to divest himself of his own breeches. "Turn."

"Aren't we fond of giving orders?" Balthier said, but he turned over onto his belly with a long stretch and a wiggle designed to make Al-Cid's mouth go dry. Judging by the way Al-Cid's breathing abruptly went shallow, he had succeeded, and he hid the smile against the crook of his arm. "Have you any oil?"

"If you thought me so unprepared, you would not have plied me with your wine and your sly words," Al-Cid responded. Where the produced the bottle from, Balthier did not know, but slick fingers traced down one buttock, leaving a cool trail. He hoped Al-Cid did not get any oil on his shirt; the stains were so difficult to remove. Then the fingers brushed against his opening, and he ceased worrying about his clothing.

Al-Cid was thorough in this as he was not other arenas--Balthier was, after all, still wearing his shirt--and Balthier had to cast his mind elsewhere lest he humiliate himself before _Al-Cid_ , of all people. He thought of stripping zombies of their festering flesh, named all the parts of the _Strahl's_ engine in his mind, imagined Fran's disapproving stare--and then the second finger was added, a little too quickly but still pleasure past the burn, and Balthier's toes curled against the cushions.

The fingers left too soon, and Balthier cursed himself for not being able to suppress the shiver. If Al-Cid saw it he did not comment, and a moment later Balthier heard the sound of slick skin against skin, Al-Cid's slow, indrawn breath, and knew why. Then Al-Cid pressed against him, and Balthier took a deep breath, held it, and exhaled.

"Is this what you wanted?" Al-Cid purred against Balthier's ear when he was fully seated, drawing his hands up along Balthier's hips and then under his shirt, up his sides.

Balthier rolled his eyes. "Get _on_ with it, you ass."

"Ass!" Al-Cid exclaimed.

"It may impress your concubines, but it hardly does me." Balthier rolled his hips beneath Al-Cid, whose leg-hairs prickled against the backs of Balthier's thighs and calves. "Come now, didn't your mother ever tell you to always finish what you start?"

"My mother also told me not to spend my efforts on the unworthy," Al-Cid replied, but his thrust was gratifyingly deep.

"You certainly know how to charm--mmmm." Al-Cid had sunk his teeth into the juncture between Balthier's neck and shoulder, where the collar of his Rozarrian shirt did not quite protect him. Balthier's fingers found little purchase in the smooth coverings of the cushions, but he was able to clutch the braided edge of one of them. The cool, frictionless cloth felt good against his prick as Al-Cid's thrusts rocked him against the cushions, and Al-Cid swiped his tongue over the mark his teeth had left, but did not take his mouth away, sucking instead to--

"Are you _marking_ me?" Balthier demanded.

"It is a Rozarrian custom," Al-Cid said against his skin.

"It is _not_ , you wretch." Balthier struggled, but Al-Cid had the advantage of size and weight. He was able to get his elbows beneath him when Al-Cid gave another teeth-aching thrust at just the right angle, and now he dropped his head and groaned despite himself. For all his posturing, Al-Cid did seem to know what he was about. Balthier wormed one hand beneath himself to grasp his own prick, pulling in time with Al-Cid's thrusts.

"Well," Al-Cid gasped out, "if it is not custom, then I decree it to be so."

"What _are_ you talking about?" Balthier groaned.

"This custom of marking."

"Oh dear gods," Balthier muttered.

But Al-Cid seemed to be losing some of his control as well; he leaned his sweaty forehead against the back of Balthier's neck, and his breaths came heavy and quick. Balthier paused in his stroking to rub the heel of his hand around the head of his leaking prick. Al-Cid grunted and tensed behind him, and then gave a long sigh. He grew still, but Balthier was not yet finished, but close; he stroked himself with more fervency, and was nearly there, the world whiting at the edges of his vision, when Al-Cid stirred himself and grasped Balthier's wrist to still his movements.

"You are damned annoying," Balthier said.

"I shame myself," Al-Cid said, and turned them both on their sides. It was no great feat; Balthier was so close already, and it took only a few more tugs before he spilled.

Balthier said, after a pause, "I think you made me dirty my shirt."

"I aim to satisfy," Al-Cid mumbled. His accent had grown thicker, if that was at all possible, his words blurry; he was clearly on the verge of sleep.

Balthier was not remiss to simply basking for a while, but Fran was surely waiting already.

"Have you seen my trousers?" he asked. But there was no reply.

\---

When Al-Cid awoke, Balthier would be long gone, and his aide would present him with a sealed envelope. Inside would be a note:

 _My thanks for the loan of the airship. Cheers. -B_


End file.
